Category Archives: Ad-liberation

Very honoured to be included as one of poet, literary activist and all-round supa-woman of action Kadija Sesay’s “& Friends” at this event today. Celebrating National Poetry Day & also her significant (35?, 40?) earthday.

I was a bit giddy last night and attempted a rather ill-thought out advertising analogy to express my gratitude to the Numbi family for being included as part of their book launch line-up.

Carlsberg don’t do book launches – they manufacture an insipid alcoholic beverage. If they did do book launches they’d probably be some tired hackneyed macho-wank fantasy for a revisionist colonialist Maangamizi denier (don’t read: David Starkey, Niall Ferguson, Marr…) dressed up in corporate gimmericky and celebrity fare.

My clumsy analogy was meant to infer that Numbi is the opposite of this. Numbi do do book launches and last night was a beautiful warm gathering of friendly family faces I was honoured to be a part of and to share with, to connect with artists, poets, photographers, bibliophiles, activists and to enjoy the words, artwork and thoughts of other writers from the Numbi/Scarf stable blended together with the deep dope beats of DJ Tillah Willah, and the trademark generosity and heart-felt Numbi love on a shoe-string budget. A special brew!

I have a sneak preview launch of my very first, very own, full, complete, published poetry collection tomorrow together with those beautiful folks at Numbi Arts. Booking link here.

Recently published authors from the Numbi family Funmi Adewole (Sea Salt in the City) and Christelle Kedi (Beautifying the Body: In Ancient Africa and Today) will be in attendance reading from their new bookstogether with Numbi poet-in-residence Dorothea Smartt reading from her forthcoming chapbook Reader, I Married Him & Other Queers Goings On.

The latest edition of Scarf magazine will also be unveiled with readings on the night from contributors including Dean Atta and associate editor Elmi Ali.

+ Kadija Sesay (George) will also be stopping by via the Peepal Tree Press/Sable Litmag/Inscribe/Scarf/Numbi family connection to support and read from her new collection Irki.

Here’s an edited extract from my first column for Sable Litmag as Arts & Politics editor:

From Advertising to Anarchism

Afloat in an ocean of gigabytes, lessons from history slip through our wireless nets. Instead, we climb aboard celebrity-captained Titanics, happy to Harlem Shake, tweet and twerk the night away, pausing only to chip a little iceberg into our drinks...

“Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century”, so says Mr Marshall Mcluhan… For most of my adolescence and into my early twenties I was fully onboard with this appraisal of the dark arts…

I’m diaper-deep in solidarity breast-feeding at the moment so unable to attend the tribute to Jayne Cortez in London tomorrow (check the fittingly impressive line-up below). I was lucky enough to meet, listen to and dialogue with the Firespitter on a few occasions and in 2011 I took part in an Inscribe workshop which Jayne faciliated. One of the tasks she set us was to write about the subject of “freedom” – the poem that she urged me to complete is below:

Necessary Freedoms

In answering a poetic task set by sister Cortez he recounts his admiration for brother Malcolm and sister Nawaal.

In contemplating the true essence of freedom he asks himself how free can we truly be? Can we be so true to self that we

forget self? Forget who we are supposed to be, and just be? Free. Naked when all others are clothed? Sit, while others stand?

Stand, while others sit? Dancing to the beat of our heart. So fucking free to scream, to shout, without consequence, without

conscience? To cry, and not know, not care, why. Laughing for the beauty, for the futility of it all. Om…………………………………

He meditates on Malcolm…olm. Om. Omowale el Haaj Malik el Shabaaz. Yes, being once already dead one can truly live without

All kids at one time or another hate their parents
– when punished; denied freedom;
denied the latest!-must-have! toy/fast food/experience.

I did not hate my Dad because he rationed my sugar addiction;
nor because he countered ad industry seduction of my tiny mind.
I did not hate my Dad because he beat me or abused me
(he was a loving, caring father who did neither).